Monday, October 20, 2014

MTR #3 - Belgian Apple Brioche

Saturday 18 Oct was probably the last warm day in October. We were able to enjoy a nice and sunny day (23 degrees!!!) as if it was still summer. I am not sure if I have ever experienced such a warm autumn day in Belgium! My son jokingly asked me if we could hold a BBQ since the weather was so warm and pleasant. I told him that the sun would set very early from now onwards since the days are getting shorter day by day, and no, we were not gonna have a BBQ, since summer was officially over.

How could I not bake some breads in such nice weather? So I baked a belgian apple brioche and quickly took the opportunity to snap fotos of it under natural light in our garden, before the sun disappeared behind the trees. This will probably be the last series of fotos taken under natural light before the onset of winter when it will start to turn dark as early as 4pm. And not to forget in about a week's time, we all have to tune our clocks and watches for daylight-saving. It will be 7 hours time difference between Belgium and Singapore instead of 6 hours. :)

Apples have always been one of my favourite fruits and we always have apples in our fridge or on the tabletop, so it is no wonder that I decide to dig out some apple recipes for posting. Do you know that due to the tragic shootdown of MH17, Russia has declared an embargo on all import of fruits and veggies from Europe, and as a result, there is now an over-supply of locally produced apples and pears, and you can see apples and pears everywhere in Belgium being sold at rock-bottom prices. Imagine a kilo of Jonagold red apples (pack of 6) for as little as 1,30 euro! They were previously being sold at 1,60 to 1,80 euro if I recall correctly. So what better way to support the belgian fruit farmers and the belgian economy by consuming a lot of belgian apples and pears? =)

Recipe adapted from a dutch baking book Appeltaart by Janneke Philippe

Ingredients

475g bread flour (I added 1 tbsp extra)

25g custard powder

7g instant yeast (2 + 1/3 tsp)

2 eggs at room temp

50g sugar

75g unsalted butter, softened (split into 50g + 25g)

175ml milk (lukewarm)

1/2 tsp salt

Fillings

1 very big apple (increased to 1.5)

3 rounded tbsp brown sugar (increased to 4)

2 tbsp raisins (increased to 3 tbsp)

Egg Wash

1 egg lightly beaten with few drops of water (not included in original recipe)

Glaze (omitted)

1/2 tbsp almond flakes

75g icing sugar

1 egg-white, beaten

Method (translation from Dutch to English)

1. First place the wet ingredients (eggs, milk) into the bread machine or stand-mixer with dough hook, followed by the dry ingredients (bread flour, custard powder). Make sure that you set the salt, sugar and yeast apart, the salt and sugar should be at separate corners, dig a hole in the flour mixture and add in the yeast in the centre. Only add in the softened butter when a rough dough is formed. You may wish not to pour in all the milk all at one go. (I used BM to knead for only 20 min since the book didn't specify that windowpane stage has to be achieved. On hind sight, I should have kneaded longer.)

2. Form the dough into a ball and cover with clean tea towel. Let it proof at room temp for 45 min. (As the weather was not warm, I placed my dough in a lightly greased bowl covered with greased clingwrap and put it in the oven for proofing, with lowest temp turned on about 30C, for about 1 hour)

3. On a lightly floured surface, punch down and roll out the dough into a rectangle of 1cm thickness. Melt 25g butter and spread on the dough with a brush. Peel, core and cut apple into 1cm cubes. Mix apple cubes with sugar and raisins. Spread the mixture over the dough and leave a 2cm fringe free all around the dough. (I realised the apple filling was not sufficient, so I added more apples, raisins and brown sugar)

4. Roll up the dough and cut into 9 equal portions. Place them facing up in a 30-cm (greased) springform, cover and proof for 45 min. (I first sliced off the 2 ends of 2 cm each, before slicing into 9 equal portions. Then because I did not own a 30-cm springform, I placed 6 rolls in a 8-inch/20-cm greased chiffon tin and another 3 in a greased loaf pan.)

5. Preheat the oven to 180C. Bake the buns for 30 to 35 min. Remove from the oven and cool the buns in the springform for 15 min. Then remove them from the springform and allow them to cool further on cooling rack until room temp. (After 10 min in the oven, I took the buns out and apply a layer of egg-wash. As I was using 2 separate tins of differing sizes, it was hard to check if the buns were ready. I let them bake for about 30 min, and realised the ones in the loaf pan were more well-baked than the ones in the chiffon tin.)

6. Roast the almonds in a dry saucepan until golden brown. Mix a little egg-whites at a time with icing sugar until a thick glaze is formed. Spoon the glaze over the brioche and sprinkle the roasted almonds on top. Let it dry for 15 min. (This step was omitted since uncooked egg-whites are not so suitable for children.)

I hope you would enjoy this simple belgian apple brioche. My kids, hubby and I enjoyed it so much that we had it as "picnic" (actually afternoon tea) sitting on a mat in the garden enjoying the afternoon sun. :)

And for this coming December, we are holding a Christmas related theme for MTR #4, befitting the festive mood of Christmas. And this will be followed by 2 months of Chinese New Year related theme for MTR #5 for Jan and Feb 2015. For those who are interested in joining our blog-hop, do take note of the dates. I will put it down on the side of my blog so that it is more visible to everybody. :)

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